Intriguing recommendation that might come out of the OSB HOD meeting on November 2, 2012:
Resolution 13
“Resolved, The House of Delegates recommends that the Board of Governors study the feasibility of making a metropolitan court district combining the resources of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties to increase access to justice and make an appropriate recommendation to the Oregon Legislature, the Oregon Judicial Department and the Chief Justice.”
Not everyone in Oregon (or elsewhere in the country) is lucky enough to have easy access to a local public law library with trained law library staff members (e.g. Washington County Law Library) (Not everyone has easy access to a public library either, for that matter.)
Public library reference librarians and paraprofessional staff members are invited to tune in to one or more of these Access to Justice webinars, from the Pro Bono Network:
1) Idaho: “Idaho County to Hire Lawyer to Assist Pro Se Litigants,” Aug 13, 2012, by Molly McDonough. ABA Journal News.
Link to Idaho Press Tribune story: “Idaho county to hire lawyer to help ‘pro se’ cases“
2) Massachusetts: Yale Law Journal article (June 2012): “Randomized Evaluation in Legal Assistance: What Difference Does Representation (Offer and Actual Use) Make?“ by D. James Greiner and Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak
I was visiting the ever-enlightening FGI blog (Free Government Information) and came across a blog post about this treasure: State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States
You can link directly to the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States and if you do, make sure to click on the Oregon link, which was set up by the very talented Oregon librarian, Liz Paulus.
Let this be a lesson for us all:
US Executive Branch Closure Crawl (from Free Government Information (FGI))
Toddle over to Federal Government Blogs for more websites.
A 3 Geeks and a Blog July 13 (Turning Internet Nasty Into Money for a Cause) started me thinking, perhaps in the slipstream of others, about people who use websites and blogs intentionally or unintentionally to redress consumer (and other) injuries and grievances or to shame those “who done them wrong,” rather than hiring a lawyer – or to help build public support for their own pro se / self-represented / small claims lawsuit.
I’m not talking about The Complainers, those people who would rather have their grievances (and their whining) than a solution to a problem. I’m thinking instead about people who really do try to solve problems creatively with deliberation, conversation, research and hard work. (See the example in the 3 Geeks post, that of Anita Sarkeesian, and Heather Peters, the California Small Claims Court litigant)
Journalists, newspapers, and other days-of-yore print media have always use Publication to educate and persuade, but now, almost anyone can broadcast. Consider, for example, that 2009 U.S. Supreme Court case (Safford Unified School District v. Redding) about the strip search of a high school girl by school officials. After oral argument the print and the online chatter was brutal, shaming, criticizing, and outright laughing at the utter and apparent cluelessness of many of the Justice’s questions and assumptions about Real High School Life (specifically for young women). I wonder if that onslaught of “are you kidding me?!!” types of broadcast reaction forced the Justices to step back a little to rethink their previously fixed opinions, if only to retain a little professional and maybe even personal credibility, dignity, and respect. (Their own children and grandchildren are surely not banned from telling them A Thing or Two About Youf Today.)
Oregon family law attorneys give away a lot of free information and collaborate to make available lots of free family law forms.
The Oregon Judicial Department Family Law Facilitators offer free advice and invaluable services to many self-represented litigants, but family law can become complex very quickly when there are children, substantial financial assets, or simply whenever there is no meeting of the minds.
Family law attorneys also provide lots of information, which you can find on their websites. I’ve come across this one recently, a Northwest law firm that has a collection of articles and a guide to divorce in Oregon, all free.
On June 15, 2012, the Washington State Supreme Court adopted a new rule:
APR 28, entitled “Limited Practice Rule for Limited License Technicians”
You can link to the text of the new rule and the final order from:
If you’re not a lawyer, law librarian, or have never researched the law, where do you begin?
No, it’s not enough to find cases and statutes online. It’s also not enough to toss a question into cyberspace and expect someone to answer it with anything more than research tips.
Think about it.
Oregon Legal Research Blog